Doppelgänger
by adorable pragmatism
Summary: Robin can't shake what he claims is just a cold, but keeps getting worse. Red X is becoming increasingly dangerous. Raven is worried, and discovers a thin trail of magic that leads her to discovering the true cause of Robin's affliction, and the true story behind the return of Red X. The truth can be difficult to face, when the face is a familiar one.
1. Decline

A/N: Warning: It gets pretty dark.

It's based on my personal, Not-Jason-Todd, Red X theory. I like the Jason Todd one, too, but only as passing references. I just have trouble believing the timeline with that one, you know? But it's a fun theory, for sure.

* * *

Looking back on it later, Raven thought it surprising that Beast Boy, of all people, was the first one to think that something was wrong.

"What if he's an impostor?" asked Beast Boy, whispering conspiratorially. It was his evening to wash dishes, and he was elbow-deep in soap suds. "Or if he's being possessed?"

"Really, Beast Boy," Raven said dully without even looking up from her crossword puzzle, and left it at that.

Beast Boy glanced askance at where Robin was lying down on the sofa. With Robin's eyes hidden under his mask, they didn't know if he was sleeping or if his eyes were open, staring blankly up at the ceiling. In any case, the sight was so odd that the other Titans stayed grouped together in the kitchen, not wanting to disturb him.

"I'm just saying—I don't think that's the real Robin," Beast Boy told them. "He never, ever takes naps."

Cyborg, that day's dish-drier, yanked the washed pan out of Beast Boy's hands. "If you think a conspiracy theory's gonna get you out of chores, you better think again."

"Guys, what if he's dead? He could've slipped into a coma! We should check."

"There is nothing wrong with Robin," Starfire said, but she sounded worried and had been glancing over at Robin frequently for the past fifteen minutes. She was sitting on the stool beside Raven, listlessly picking through a bowl of jellybeans—her new favourite Earthly discovery—for a flavor she yet to try. "He has been very busy in his attempts to capture the Red X, that is all. He deserves to rest."

Beast Boy _hmm_ed dubiously, dropped his dishrag, and walked out of the kitchen, headed to the sofa.

"_Beast Boy_!" Starfire whispered urgently.

He turned back and put his finger to his lips, but didn't stop. "_Shh."_

"Beast Boy!" Cyborg said through gritted teeth.

Beast Boy ignored him and kept walking.

"_Beast Boy_," Raven said in warning.

He crept up to the sofa, hopping to dodge a tendril of Raven's magic that tried to coil around his ankle and drag him back. Cautiously, he leaned forward and peeked over the back of the sofa.

"Beast Boy," Robin greeted him blandly, making him shriek in fright and duck down out of sight. So Robin _was_ awake. "Do you want something?"

"Just seeing if you're okay," Beast Boy replied innocently, standing upright. "You seemed dead… uh, dead-tired, that's all. What's wrong?"

Robin sat up and rubbed at his eyes through his mask. "I haven't been able to sleep well lately. But I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Have you been kept awake by the horses of the night?" Starfire inquired with concern, floating closer to Robin.

Back-translating Starfire's spectacularly botched English sayings was a skill in itself. This one was particularly challenging. The Titans were stumped, and stared at each other blankly, urging someone to go ahead and guess.

"Nightmares?" Raven ventured as a correction.

"Yes. Is that not what I said?" Starfire asked sheepishly, blushing bright red.

"Not exactly…" Cyborg said.

"It's not nightmares," Robin said. "It's insomnia. I just can't fall asleep. Not like it's the first time I've dealt with it. It'll pass. I might be fighting a bug, too. I'm not feeling one hundred percent."

"Dude," said Beast Boy. "Go—"

"—to—" continued Raven.

"—bed!" Cyborg finished sternly, pointing at the door. "You've been working too hard, man."

"It's _six forty-five_," Robin protested. And true, the sun was still shining through the large windows of their tower.

But he changed his tune when Starfire kindly offered to make him one of her Tamaranean cure-all dishes. The one she tried to replicate with Earth foods whenever anyone on the team felt sick. The one with three boxes of baking soda as its base ingredient.

"Uh, no thanks, Star. I'm not that hungry right now," Robin told her, avoiding her large green eyes. He stood and stretched his arms up, then tried to stifle a yawn. "I think I will just go to bed, actually." At the doorway he hesitated and looked back at them. "If there's an alert—"

"We'll deal with it," said Cyborg. "Take the night off and leave it to us."

Robin nodded and left the room.

It wasn't a surprise to any of them when they received an alert about three hours later and found Robin already revving his R-Cycle as they entered the garage beneath the tower.

"I'm feeling better," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the engine's noise. "Really. I'll meet you guys there." He pushed the visor of his helmet down and sped off into the underground tunnel that connected the island to the city, his cape snapping in the air behind him.

Starfire smiled uncertainly, and took off after Robin like a blazing green, red, and purple comet.

Cyborg let out a loud, aggravated sigh through his nose, then muttered something about _stubborn, spiky-haired workaholics_ as the remaining Titans piled into the T-Car and followed.

* * *

_They were all superheroes, but, out of them, Robin was the only real vigilante. His work didn't stop at supervillains and natural disasters. Some nights he liked to head to the worst parts of the city and patrol on his own, something he wasn't allowed to do back when he was a sidekick in Gotham City._

_Everyone had different methods for relieving stress. Raven meditated. Beast Boy played violent video games. Cyborg fixed his car. Robin beat crooks and muggers in dark, grimy alleyways at ungodly hours of the night. To each his or her own._

_They worried about him, but he would just shrug and say that he'd dealt with far, far worse. Apparently, fighting Jump's petty criminals was a cakewalk compared to what he had been through in his old city of Gotham. And he always made good on his promise to call them for back-up if he ran afoul of a supervillain or found himself in over his head. He had called them quite often in the past few weeks, because he kept spotting Red X._

_This time, it was the authorities that reported a Red X sighting by a bank downtown. They called the Teen Titans because they were the only ones capable of taking him down._

_Not that they had ever managed to catch him before… But one day they would. That was what Robin always said._

_This wasn't that day._

_Red X decided to crash a bank robbery, a heist being pulled off by regular, non-superpowered crooks. By the time the Titans tracked him down he had already beaten and tied up the robbers, and made off with the loot. Stolen the stolen money. _

_One city-wide chase later, the Titans caught up to the thief and surrounded him on a rooftop. Like always, he took them down—not with ease, although he gloated like it. They put up a fight, but Robin had just made the Red X suit too powerful, too advanced, tailored to target them and their weaknesses, and they wound up having to wrestle themselves free from piles of sticky red goo._

_All except Robin. He was noticeably off his game tonight, a little more sluggish in his movements, but a few lucky dodges meant that he wasn't caught in the goo like the others, and free to chase after X himself._

_Once freed, they found him a few blocks over, battling Red X in a wide alleyway and losing. Red X was swinging an X-shaped wrist-blade at Robin. Robin could barely keep up and lost a little ground with each strike, getting backed up against the nearby wall._

_Red X saw the Titans immediately and before they could jump in to help there was a sharp gleam of red and Robin, his exhaustion catching up to him, lagged just a moment too long in his reaction, his block weak and sloppy._

_Red X vanished, teleporting away while Robin slammed into the rough ground, bo-staff clattering across the concrete._

_The Titans rushed forward, faces stricken with fear because Robin wasn't getting up right away, he was still breathing but they were small, wheezing breaths like he couldn't hold the air in his lungs, and his friends knew they should have made him stay in the Tower tonight—he obviously lied when he said he was feeling better, he'd been in no condition to fight—and now he was hurt, definitely bleeding, there was definitely blood, and…_

* * *

"You're really stupid, you know that?" Cyborg said.

"Yeah, sure, Cyborg," said Robin idly. "Whatever you say."

The injuries had looked worse in the dim alleyway—where shadows had hidden so much that the Titans, in their initial shock, thought there had been much more blood than there actually was—than they did in the proper lighting of the infirmary. Robin's pride had suffered the worst injury. He looked embarrassed for losing to Red X, and that his friends had seen it. He only had a few bruises and a slash on his forearm that he was treating himself while the rest of them chided him for fighting sick and rashly going after Red X himself.

They were supposed to be a _team_, but when it came to Red X, Robin still seemed to think that it was his personal duty to take him down. That Red X was his fault.

Robin paused while dabbing at the cut on his arm, swaying slightly where he was sitting on the cot. He hid the dizzy spell rather well by shrugging his cape off of his shoulders like it was getting in his way, but not well enough. Raven noticed.

"Are you still feeling ill?" Raven asked.

"I'm—"

"Don't say you're fine."

"Fine," he said, and she raised an eyebrow at him. He struggled to explain. "I mean, _fine_, I won't say that." Raven looked at him, unblinking, until he elaborated. "I just have a headache, fatigue, some trouble concentrating…" he admitted in a mutter. "Nothing serious."

Raven placed the back of her hand to his forehead. "You don't have a fever." He felt _cooler_, not warmer, than he should have.

Raven usually let her friends' colds pass naturally. Having her magic interfere wasn't good for their immune systems, But she could make an exception now and then, so she gave him a small dose of healing magic, sapping a bit of the sickness away, enough to make the cold fade within an hour or two.

She did it subtly, without him knowing, while her hand was still against his forehead. He was the only true human on the team, more susceptible to injuries and illnesses, and she knew that he hated seeming weak because of it. That was why he so often waved away their concern.

"I'm probably not even sick. It could just be because I can't sleep. It's nothing," he said, predictably.

"We cannot help but worry, Robin," Starfire said, clasping her hands in front of her chest like a plea. "You insist on accompanying us on missions, even when you are not well. We were fortunate to find you before you suffered much damage, but another time we may not be so fortunate…"

His voice softened in that way it only did when he spoke to her. "I'm sorry, Star. I really am. But… I needed to go. Red X has been acting strangely lately. More violent. I think he's planning something."

"Since when does he plan stuff?" Beast Boy asked. "He just steals whatever random things he wants. Planning stuff isn't really his MO."

"You're right," Robin agreed, making Beast Boy blink in surprise. "It isn't. But neither is directly attacking other criminals on his own."

Twice was a coincidence. Three times was a pattern. That night marked not the third, but the _fourth_ time that Red X had left beaten criminals in his wake.

Cyborg shrugged. "Guy's probably mad that they're on his turf. I think he'll attack anyone who gets in his way, not just us."

"It's more than that. He isn't acting like himself. I can just tell that something bad is going to happen."

The statement felt ominous because they knew he was right. Raven and the other Titans exchanged worried glances. They didn't want Robin to work himself into the ground, especially not when he was sick.

"Let's see that cut," Raven told Robin.

The cut wasn't that bad. A bit jagged, but not very deep. It would heal in a week, maybe a week and a half, on its own, hardly leaving a scar. But with Raven's magic it would be gone without a mark in seconds.

Except, when she placed her hand on his arm and let the glowing energy wash over the wound, nothing happened. The gash was still there with no change when she pulled her hand away.

Raven frowned and tried again, and again nothing happened.

"Is something wrong?" Robin asked.

"I'm not sure. I can't heal it."

"Your powers must be too drained from the fight. Don't worry about me, Raven. It's just a scratch. I'll be fine." He started winding a bandage around his arm, doing a clumsy, one-handed job of it.

Cyborg left to do the night-time lockdown of the tower, and Starfire took the bandages from Robin and helped him dress the wound properly. Robin and Starfire began whispering, so Raven and Beast Boy said their good-nights and left to let the couple have their moment.

"There isn't anything wrong with my powers," Raven quietly told Beast Boy in the hallway. "I barely fought Red X."

"Umm, hey, Raven," Beast Boy said nonchalantly. "I got a paper-cut this morning… It's not a big deal, but…" He tugged the glove off of his hand and showed her a small slice on his thumb.

Raven understood immediately. She placed her hand over his, shrinking the cut to nothing in a matter of seconds.

There wasn't anything wrong with her powers.

"What does it mean?" asked Beast Boy, looking from his healed thumb to the doors of the infirmary, where Robin was. "How come—?"

"I don't know." Raven's thoughts were already traveling to her bedroom and her collection of books. They were full of answers. She wouldn't sleep that night until she found an explanation. "I'll try again in the morning."

* * *

Raven woke up early the next morning with an open book lying on her chest and other hard-covered tomes scattered across her bed, pressing into her arms and legs, leaving impressions in her skin. Last night she had fallen asleep while reading.

She woke up very uncomfortable, and without an answer.

Soft light was spilling into her room, around the edges of the blinds on the window. It was sunrise. Raven decided to go to the rooftop of the tower to do some thinking. Some mornings Robin was there, but today she was hoping to view the sky alone, hoping that Robin was still in bed, getting much-needed sleep and recovering. Maybe those unsettling problems from last evening, that were causing dread to pool in the pit of her stomach because she couldn't help but feel that they were the tip of the iceberg, were actually just small blips. Snags that had vanished overnight.

Once Robin had confided in her that he liked sunrise because it meant a new day, a clean slate. But that wasn't always the case. Sometimes problems from before carried over.

He was sitting by the edge of the roof, with his elbows on his knees and his black-and-gold cape fluttering in the breeze. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at her in greeting.

She didn't want him to be here. He was supposed to be catching up on sleep, on his way to getting well. But, it was a free rooftop.

"Did you sleep?" she asked as she sat beside him.

"Yes."

"How much?"

"… An hour…ish. About an hour and a half."

She frowned. "Are you feeling any better?"

Robin shrugged. "Same old." Turning his head away from the horizon, he met Raven's eyes with his mask. "Don't look at me like that, Raven," he said good-naturedly. "I'll be okay in a few days, once this cold is gone."

She wanted to shake him until he stopped with that brave act, stopped putting on a happy face, stopped denying that there was a problem when they both knew that there was a _huge_ problem.

"What about the cut?" she asked.

"What about it?" He was playing dumb. Raven knew if she went about this the wrong was he would start getting annoyed and defensive.

The bandage on his arm was messily wrapped. He'd done it himself, which meant he changed it just that morning. It meant that his wound hadn't healed like any normal one would have by now, after being treated by Raven.

Her magic hadn't helped at all. That was impossible. Her healing always worked—not always perfectly, but it always lessened the extent and pain of the injuries to some degree.

It was kind of stupid that a relatively minor injury—just a cut, really—was such a big deal. But it was. It was a warning.

"Robin." Her voice and eyes were stern. "Something's wrong, and it's not my powers."

She could feel it radiating off of him—confusion, exhaustion, worry—even though he didn't show it outwardly.

"Yeah," he said softly. His shield cracked just a bit in that moment. He wasn't unaware, or in denial. He just hated being vulnerable, and hated being reminded of it. Always had, for as long as Raven had known him. Admitting there was a problem must have felt like failure to him. "Yeah, I know."

Robin reluctantly followed Raven back inside to go knock on Cyborg's door and wake him up. Cyborg was grouchy for being bothered so early, but dropped the attitude when they explained why. They needed his help with the technology in the infirmary to perform a blood test.

According to the test, there was nothing wrong. The three of them frowned at the results on the computer screen. Cyborg was the only one to come up with a somewhat-plausible explanation.

"Could be that X coated his weapon with a poison before he cut you. One that freezes your immune response and stops you from healing, even with Raven's help, and doesn't show up on scans."

"I've been immunized for almost every toxin," Robin said, scratching absentmindedly at the bandage on his arm. Care packages including the latest anti-toxins and chocolate-chip cookies arrived in their mail from time to time, shipped ultra-fast overnight express from Gotham City.

"Well, I'm gonna give you a shot of antidote just in case. It works against most variations of that type of poison, and if you aren't being affected it won't do you any harm. We just need to wait and see if it works." After giving Robin the injection, Cyborg clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy this time, okay? Just get better."

Unhappily, Robin agreed to be benched for a few days, and the other Titans did what they always did when a team member was sick or injured: they granted Robin full authority over the TV remote and stocked the kitchen with his favourite foods. Starfire seldom left his side, doing everything she could to make sure he was happy and comfortable.

A couple of days passed. A problem arose.

Not only was Raven's magic still unable to heal the slash on his arm—she tried several times a day—but it wasn't healing itself, either. Not at a normal rate, anyway. It looked as raw as it had the night he'd gotten it.

Cyborg did bloodwork and checked the wound again, and, just like before, everything seemed pretty normal.

They suggested that Robin go to the hospital for a second opinion, but he scoffed at the idea. The Titans' infirmary was better than the hospital, without the added worry of him risking his secret identity.

Raven shut herself in her room, searching through her books day and night until her eyes and fingers itched fiercely, dry as the pages she was turning. Then she searched more, determined to find a solution to help Robin. If the problem wasn't medical, then it had to be mystical.

Cyborg tested Robin for every human disease, and a few alien ones that the Justice League had documented, and got nothing.

They suggested that maybe they could call Batman or the Justice League, and in response Robin gave them that _look_, just as potent as it always was, and said that the adult heroes had bigger things to worry about than his lingering cold and a little scratch.

Robin still didn't sleep well. He barely slept at all, and he refused medication.

"When I'm tired enough, I'll sleep," he said. He looked so, so tired when he said it.

They heard him walking the hallways at night, going to living room to get away from the frustrating helplessness of insomnia, the tossing and turning.

Beast Boy was also a bit of a night owl, now and then staying up until dawn watching TV, so he took it upon himself to keep Robin company by playing video games or watching movies with him.

When the other Titans came in for breakfast, they found a green cat curled up asleep on one side of the sofa, and Robin sitting on the other side with Silkie on his lap, still awake and staring at the early morning news report on the television screen.

Robin didn't stop eating, but he ate less, chewing slowly and mechanically like everything on his plate tasted like cardboard to him.

Starfire was the only one who could get him to laugh or smile. She was also the only one capable of re-convincing him, almost daily, to stay home from missions until he felt better.

Cyborg ran tests for poisons, nano-bots, and chemical reagents, which all came up negative.

There was a knock on Raven's door every once in a while. She would put down whichever book she was reading and open the door to find Beast Boy standing there, holding out a steaming mug of tea for her and wearing a piteous expression. They were all worried sick. It was like whatever was affecting Robin had seeped throughout the tower, dragging down their spirits as well.

He looked so forlorn, so miserable because he wanted to help and didn't know how, that Raven sighed and let him inside to flick through some of her books, even though they weren't written in languages he understood. He would give up after a few minutes and settle for tidying up the scattered books, stacking them according to colour or size, which weren't organizational systems that helped Raven at all. It was the thought that counted. Beast Boy always seemed a bit happier after 'helping'.

Titans East visited for a day, and in hushed voices they tossed around words like _depression _but nothing they came up with could explain why Robin's wounds were taking so long to heal, or why Raven's healing magic had little to no effect on him.

"His body is shutting down slowly," Raven said. "We have no idea what the cause is. He's just… wasting away."

"Robin, you look like you're dying," Speedy told him bluntly before they left.

"It's good to see you too, Speedy." The words were thick with sarcasm.

Robin eventually caved in and accepted sleeping pills. Even so, he only slept a fitful couple of hours each day, and the medication made him moody and groggy.

More frequently, Raven tried healing him, using higher concentrations of magic each time. There was no reason why it shouldn't work, except that it _wasn't_. Whenever she found a spell in her books that might fix everything, Robin sat obediently on the floor of her room while she drew runes in a circle around him. He never let himself look disappointed when a spell didn't work. He just thanked her warmly for trying, and that only made her feel worse.

Cyborg tested for errant energy signals, with no results.

"What's _wrong_ with me?" Robin asked with a weak laugh, on the day when he began trembling from a constant chill in the air that only he could feel. Then, more quietly, "What's wrong with me?"

Starfire fretted over him, pacing around the tower restlessly (if it could be considered pacing when she was floating above the floor) and draping another blanket over his shoulders each time she passed until he toppled over from the sheer weight. All the blankets in the world couldn't stop him from shivering. Tears were welling in her eyes as she helped the struggling boy untangle himself from the mound of coverlets.

He gave her a small, dazed smile, and it broke her apart.

She sobbed into his chest, giving in to the pent up worry and frustration that all of them were feeling. He just held her and wrapped a quilt around both of them. They fell asleep like that, on the sofa.

It might have been considered cute by the other Titans, if only Robin didn't look so sickly. It might have been considered unnecessary PDA by the other Titans, if they weren't so relieved to see him sleeping peacefully for the first time in over two weeks.

They thought that the worst was over. This had to be the turning point, _finally._

Wrong.

In the days and nights that followed, Robin slept a lot. He slept too much, and he never seemed less tired.

A night came when they got an alert and Robin didn't even leave his room to see what was going on. That was when they knew things were really bad.

"When we get back," Cyborg said as they were buckling up in the T-Car, "I'm calling Batman."

* * *

_Something was rotten in the city of Jump._

_Raven could feel it, sense it. Especially at night when it was strongest. _

_It could have just been Robin's paranoia rubbing off on her, or maybe she was so unsettled by his illness that the anxiety was worming its way deep into her mind, making her jump at shadows._

_Something was wrong, and she couldn't put her finger on it. Everything outside the Tower had remained pretty much the same over the past couple of weeks. The supervillains were staying in prison for once, and the Titans didn't have much to do, which was both a blessing and a curse because they didn't have anything to keep them busy, keep them from worrying about Robin to the point of distress._

_With Robin out of commission, they were lucky that the villains weren't free to take advantage of that weakness. The streets were quiet, calm, and the citizens of the city were safe, during the day._

_But at night… at night Raven was troubled. Her gaze kept drifting out her window, thought she had no idea what she was looking for._

_Even when she was alone in her room, reading another book that was just words and not solutions, Raven couldn't shake the feeling that, out there, across the water, in the alleyways and the abandoned buildings and the gaps between them, those dark corners were hiding something sinister. _

_Raven thought that maybe Red X was the something sinister—he did like disappearing into those dark corners, and he was the only villain on the loose. It was likely. She remembered what Robin had said: that he knew bad things were going to happen, because of Red X._

_There was no real evidence that Robin's affliction had been caused by Red X, but the Titans all wondered if that was the case. And that wasn't the only reason they made him a priority to catch. He was still out there most nights, stealing everything from technology to cash. Any other criminals that got in his path were left beaten, slightly bloody, and tied up for the cops to deal with._

_Which begged the question: what was he doing? Taking out the competition? But, why?_

_Four out of five Titans rushed out for every Red X sighting, and always arrived too late. He was a master of misdirection and getaways. They never came close to catching him without Robin. They couldn't even pick up a trail. The city seemed to get larger after the sun went down. _

_Robin remained involved by reading police reports, watching the news, trying to pin together the clues into the bigger picture. As time went on and he had become more tired, he worked on the case less and less._

_Despite their best efforts—which were actually pathetic, because they were so occupied with Robin—Red X was acting on his ambitions mostly unhindered. There was no Robin, his only match, to get in his way._

_It had to end. If Red X was the core of the rottenness, they had to stop him._

_Robin had always said that they would catch Red X someday. And they would. There had to be one night where Red X got a little too confident, or a little less lucky. He couldn't keep getting away forever. One night soon, they would catch him._

_Raven was resolved that this would be that night._

* * *

Red X had been spotted in the north end of town.

The Titans, split-up and searching, were brought back together by the sound of a loud explosion, like the night air cracking in two, and an orange glow of fire coming from one of many warehouses. Smoke was pouring out of the building and up into the night sky, and they all took it as a clear beacon of the thief.

Exhausted and low on magic from all her attempts to heal Robin, Raven was the last one to show up at the site of the explosion. During the flight she felt like she was about to fall out of the air at any second, barely able to keep herself aloft. But she would push through if it meant capturing Red X.

Her teammates had gotten the fire under control. Cyborg did some complicated improvisation with a nearby fire hydrant to reduce the flames to steam.

"Was anyone inside?" Raven asked as she landed on the scorched pavement. She couldn't sense any people inside now, but that didn't mean…

Cyborg shook his head. "Don't think so. I scanned. Fire wasn't as bad as it seemed, anyway." He was right. The building was still standing, and only this side was blackened from the flames. No walls had collapsed.

"I found some people over here!" Beast Boy called, waving them over.

Bound to a lamppost with a large, sticky scarlet X were more of Red X's victims. Four of them, dressed in rough clothes, some of them with tattoos and all unconscious, bruised, and bleeding.

Raven looked from the still-smoking warehouse to the men tied to the lamppost and wondered if they were smugglers, and what they had been smuggling. Weapons? Drugs? This was the sort of thing Robin liked to deal with on his own. The Titans had no idea what to do in this situation.

"Are they breathing?" Beast Boy asked in a small voice.

"Yes," Raven said. "But they aren't in good shape." Sirens were shrieking in the distance, becoming louder and louder.

"Fire trucks and paramedics are on their way," Cyborg said. "I'll stay here, and you three see if you can track down X. He's got to be in the area." Just before any of them took to the air, he said hesitantly, "Just… be careful, all right?"

They knew that he was thinking of Robin, thinking of the beaten and bloodied criminals Red X was leaving behind him, thinking of how everything seemed so much more dangerous and real than it usually did. They weren't dealing with magicians or mutant moths here.

They nodded in goodbye and flew. Starfire soared high above them, bright and determined. Beast Boy took wing as a hawk and went west.

Raven flew as high and as fast as she could manage, fighting the almost overwhelming drag of gravity. After how they had lectured Robin for going on a mission exhausted, she probably shouldn't be out here.

She paused in midair, above a street sign, having just felt something strange. A tug, like the pull of a magnet. Strange, and yet familiar.

It was the same force she'd been sensing for weeks, that troubling feeling that had her always looking out her window to the city, now stronger than ever. It wasn't her imagination; it was tangible. She hadn't found Red X, but she found _this_, and she finally knew what it was:

Magic. _Her_ magic.

Raven flew after it.


	2. Ambition

A/N: There's still a part three coming, eventually. :)

* * *

Raven followed the trail to a beaten down brick building, and into the top floor apartment of the north-east corner, phasing through the wall even though it was a strain and she was scared that she would get stuck midway.

She didn't, but it was tough and she felt like she was clawing her way through. Landing with a stumble inside, she took a gasping breath from the effort, then straightened up and looked around her.

It was one room, not too messy, but it was hard to tell because the lights in the apartment were off. Nobody was home. The only light was from the orange-tinted streetlamps outside, coming in through the dusty window.

The most striking feature of the apartment, that drew all her attention immediately, was that the walls of the room were covered in newspaper clippings. If Raven didn't know better, she would think that she had walked right into Robin's workroom.

She treaded uncertainly beside the walls, scanning the articles as she walked. There were plenty about criminals, robberies, and gangs in the city, but there were also stories about the Teen Titans, and Batman. And there were maps of Jump and Gotham, both heavily annotated.

Raven paused and leaned in closely to read a note scribbled messily in the side of a Batman article:

_I can be better._

Her stomach twisted into knots, one for each handwriting was familiar. She was used to seeing it around the tower. On their shopping lists, on memos stuck to the fridge, on mission files scattered on the coffee table.

She felt like she'd stepped through a tainted mirror into another, darker, world. This was wrong. It couldn't be possible.

As she took out her communicator, she noticed the handgun lying on a shelf of the crooked bookcase beside her. That gun had almost certainly been held by the same hand that wrote those words.

Raven shivered. She tried not to think about green-gloved fingers wrapping around the deadly metal, slowly squeezing the trigger.

With shaking hands she opened her communicator and pressed the button to call the others.

Cyborg answered. "Raven?"

"I think I know what's wrong with Robin."

"Tell us!" Starfire demanded with newfound, frantic hope in her voice.

"It's Red X." Raven was already flying away from that awful place. Instead of wasting energy phasing through the wall she wrenched open the window. She did her best to explain what she had seen, and what she was suspecting, as she flew, following the trail of magic back the way she came—she realized that she must have followed the trail _backwards_ to get to the apartment, and this way was forward.

Her teammates were quiet over the line, taking in what she had said, as she flew over the fire-damaged warehouse and continued farther along the trail as quickly as she could, ignoring her own tiredness.

"But, I don't get it. How—?" Beast Boy began, confused.

"I don't know everything," Raven said. She really didn't. She only had crazy guesses and half-baked theories with huge gaps in the reasoning. "I just know that we need to catch Red X. It might be the only way to help Robin."

"We'll do it," Cyborg said with conviction. "If we have to, we'll search every square foot of this city to find him."

"That won't be necessary. I can track him. Catch up to me as soon as you can."

Raven, adjusting her path slightly south where the magic was stronger, suddenly realized exactly where she was being led. Just ahead, rising taller above the other buildings the closer she got, its dark windows gleaming from the middle of the bay, was Titans Tower.

A collective breath was taken over the communicator line when she told the others.

Cyborg made sure to activate every security measure whenever they left the tower to respond to alerts, especially lately with Robin being left behind on the nights they went to search for Red X. They always wondered if one of them should stay behind with Robin, just in case, but he insisted they go, saying he didn't need them to take care of him.

Their security system was one of the best in the world, on par with the Justice League's. The tower was a stronghold. It could withstand anything short of a nuclear explosion, and maybe even that, too. No one should have been able to get in unauthorized. But, as Raven flew over the water, closer and closer, she knew that, somehow, Red X had accomplished it.

"Robin's not responding," Cyborg said agitatedly. "And I can't access any of the systems remotely. The tower's in total lockdown. No one can get in or out, not even us."

"Do you think Robin did it?" asked Beast Boy.

"No. Not Robin. Red X did it. He's inside." She could sense it.

"I thought that was impossible," Starfire said. "Only one of us—a Titan—can activate the protocols."

"And only a Titan can get inside. Red X did both." Raven was close enough to see her reflection in the windows of the tower.

"Go, Raven. You should still be able to phase through. Don't wait for us," said Cyborg. "I can hack into the system and reboot to let the rest of us in, once I get there, but it'll take time."

Raven held her breath and summoned her soul-self, taking the plunge through the glass. She was tired, drained, so it wasn't easy. It was like dragging herself through sand. Heavy limbs and too much resistance.

The tower was quiet, except for the faintest hum of technology. She had been anticipating the sounds of fighting, shouts and birdarangs whizzing through the air. Even in his weakened state, Robin would not have been snuck up on, or given up without a fight.

Raven walked briskly down the hallway, resisting the urge to call out Robin's name. Red X could be lurking anywhere. Robin's room was just around the corner. A few more steps, then she could fling open the door and—

She felt the presence like a breath on the back of her neck, and whirled around, finding a face watching her from a shadowed corner of the hallway. Robin's face.

"It's okay, Raven," he said reassuringly, and it was Robin's voice. "It's me."

His eyes were not hidden behind a mask. They were that vivid blue that she had only seen once, not counting the time she delved into his mind and memories, but still remembered.

Doubt coiled in her stomach. Why would he have taken off his mask?

_Because this was not the real Robin._

Squinting at him in the darkness that her vision had not yet completely adjusted to, she saw the X emblazoned over his chest.

Raven stumbled back, nearly tripping on her own cloak, raising her hands and feeling the last dregs of magic flow to her fingertips, ready to attack.

The blue-eyed boy—she didn't know what to call him; was he Robin or Red X?—also raised his hands, but in appeasement. His expression was a startled one.

"Raven, _don't!_"

He sounded so much like Robin, _so much like him_, that she faltered—flinching in uncertainty and lowering her hands—and by the time she realized the huge mistake she made he was already smiling a sly, unfamiliar smile and lashing out at her.

* * *

_A while ago, right after they defied all odds and defeated Trigon, when Raven was still adjusting to the light, buoyant feeling of truly being free and no longer a curse to the world, she and her friends had celebrated their victory with the largest breakfast spread any of them had seen._

_They were buzzing from an adrenaline rush that wouldn't wear off, joking and talking animatedly between bites of pancakes and eggs while the sun shone bright in a perfect blue sky that was so different from the fiery red that had been swirling overhead not long before._

_They shared what had happened in those tense, fearful hours they were separated. Robin talked about his team-up with Slade, how the two had fought demons of fire together, what he saw under Slade's mask, then how he saved Raven and brought her back to the surface._

_Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy told their side of the story, about their fights with the evil doppelgängers that Trigon created. With glowing red eyes and scathing words, they had been the three Titans' own worst enemies. Their dark sides brought to life. _

_And while they were still rattled by the experience, at having their faults picked at and their emotions played with by what had essentially been themselves, they recounted it with ease._

_It seemed that they were treating it like it was all a horror movie. Over and done with. Scary at the time, but less so in hindsight. Cyborg even joked about how easy it was to take down Beast Boy, and Beast Boy demanded a rematch as soon as possible._

_At one point, Beast Boy—a little tactlessly, a little thoughtlessly, but that was typical Beast Boy—wondered aloud, "Hey, what would a bad version of Robin be like?"_

_Silence followed; the first awkward silence that morning. That topic of conversation curled up and died right then and there._

_Robin's hand tightened on his fork as he moved his scrambled eggs around his plate, not looking any of them in the eyes._

_They had known the answer to Beast Boy's question for a long time:_

_Red X._

* * *

Raven woke up soon after in a haze of fear and discomfort. A large sticky X bound her to a chair. An experimental fidget told her that there was no give, no stretch. She barely had enough magic left in her to move a feather, much less break free.

Giving her head a shake, trying to clear it, her vision sharpened and she saw that the dark room she was in was actually Robin's bedroom. The mirrored closet doors reflected a shadowy form of herself, and also—

"Welcome back, Raven," said Robin. _Not Robin. _It was Red X.

Robin was… he was that lump under the blankets on the bed. Exactly where he had been when they left him.

He wasn't moving. Raven thought the worst had happened. When she saw the blankets rise slightly as he breathed, she took a relieved breath of her own.

"Robin, wake up," she ordered. He didn't respond, didn't even stir. "Robin! _Wake up!_" she shouted, and still nothing. Something was wrong. She turned to Red X, glaring as fiercely as she could for someone tied up and powerless. "What did you do to him?"

Red X was sitting at the foot of the bed, leaning back leisurely on his hands, one of them ever-so-slightly touching Robin's ankle. That tiny bit of contact seemed possessive. Threatening. It reminded Raven of a coiled snake—something poisonous and deadly that shouldn't be tested because there was no telling how it would react.

"Ssh, Raven," Red X said quietly. "The kid's sleeping. He hasn't been feeling good lately, you know. Me, on the other hand, I've been feeling _great_. I'm actually accomplishing something."

She wished that he would put the skull-like mask on, the one that hid his face and disguised his voice, because it would be easier to take if he looked less like Robin. If his eyes weren't the exact same bright blue. His hair was a bit shorter, his face sharper, but he was still unmistakably Robin.

And it would be easier, so much easier, to take if he sounded less like Robin. If he sounded gleeful, malicious, or dark instead. But no, it was Robin's voice through-and-through. Serious, thoughtful, focused. Robin.

"How?" Raven demanded. "Tell me how."

He smiled like he was waiting for this question. "It was Terra that caused it. You remember her, don't you? You probably don't want to. Sorry." There was no trace of apology in his voice, or his eyes, or in the smug smile he was wearing. He continued, almost bored—but that was an act, she knew he was enjoying this. "Her betrayal brought up all of those bad memories about Slade and Robin, and Slade taunting Robin so that he was obsessed with Slade and became _me_. You were worried that Robin would be triggered into doing something drastic again, like the last time Slade decided to target the Titans."

Raven partially freed one of her hands and felt for her communicator. It wasn't there. There was no way she could call for help. She could only hope that Cyborg would hack the security system soon, and until then she had to listen to a twisted version of the person who knew her best, who came closest to understanding her, use that understanding to cut her deeply, to mock her and pick at her feelings.

She told herself she could deal with it. What she was more worried about was what he planned to do with her and Robin afterwards.

"You never really forgave him for Red X, did you?" Red X asked musingly. "He took your trust and broke it into pieces."

And Raven had taken those pieces and put them back together, trying to ignore the cracks.

"You didn't want any of that to happen again," said Red X. "You wished you could cut out that part of Robin, the darkest part—neglected but _still there_—that was so cunning, and treacherous, and determined to do whatever was needed to get the job done. The part that Slade admired so much. You wanted to excise Red X like it was a cancer. So, you did. In the middle of the night, while you were asleep, your powers got away from you. It's not like that's the first time it's happened, is it?"

The question was barbed, stinging, and Raven tried not to remember the nightmare world she had once created in this very tower, terrifying her friends in the process. She stayed silent and defiant, not letting Red X get a rise out of her. She may have let emotions get the better of her in the past, but not now.

"_You_ did this, Raven," Red X said, using his uncanny, flawless similarity to Robin to make this as hurtful as possible, heaping on the blame like Robin never would. "You created me."

Raven hung her head, her eyes wide as it sunk in.

Trigon had the power to create evil doppelgängers. So did Raven.

But, no, where were the glowing red eyes? Red X looked so human. He looked exactly like Robin. This was even worse than what had happened to the other Titans.

What had she _done?_

"I took the suit," Red X was saying proudly. "It was easy. After all, I was the one who put it there."

Robin twitched in his sleep, mumbling softly and turning over so that Raven could see his face. His brow was furrowed into a deep scowl above his mask that he wore even while sleeping. Red X patted him on the leg in an almost comforting manner.

Raven glared at Red X accusingly. She knew why Robin wouldn't wake. Red X was a parasite. He had been around too long, gotten too powerful, and somewhere along the line he had started sucking the life out of Robin from afar.

That was why Raven hadn't been able to heal Robin. Her magic had gone straight to Red X, through the connection he shared with Robin. She thought she had been helping Robin, but she had only been making him worse, the _weaker_ of the two.

That Red X was even in the same room as Robin made Raven feel sick. _Parasite. _

"It's okay, kid," Red X soothed, and Robin settled down not long after.

"Why do you call him that?" asked Raven.

"That's what he is. A kid. You're all _kids!"_ Red X said angrily, slamming his hand against the mattress in frustration. "You don't understand what these criminals, these villains, these— these _scum_ are capable of. I thought maybe you could handle it, but I was wrong. You had a chance, a chance to get rid of the entire Brotherhood of Evil once and for all. They were frozen, defenseless, and you _let them go_."

"We didn't let them go," Raven said calmly. "We put them in jail."

"We both know it's the exact same thing," Red X said in a low voice. "They're criminals, they'll just escape and hurt more people. They need to be gotten rid of, for good." Raven thought of the gun lying on the shelf in that apartment. Red X meant to use it, and soon. "And if you won't stay out of my way and let me do what I need to do… Then you need to be gotten rid of, too."

Raven raised her chin and said scathingly, "You're no better than them."

"Raven, I can't help it. I don't want to hurt you—I really don't—but if you try and stop me then I don't have a choice. It's a necessary sacrifice. For the greater good."

"You're a monster."

He cocked his head to the side and looked at her, pretending to be puzzled. "But, how can I be a monster? I'm Robin."

"No, you're not."

He shrugged. "If it looks like a Robin, and quacks like a Robin, then it must be a Robin."

"Robin would _never_ want to kill anyone, even a criminal. He wouldn't even think about it."

"Oh, but he would. I didn't come out of thin air." Leaning forward on the edge of the bed, Red X told Raven companionably, like he was confiding in her, "Let me tell you that Robbie here isn't all flips and chivalry. He's seen the worst the world has to offer and it stays with him forever. You got a glimpse of it when he was obsessed with Slade, but it reaches deeper than you can imagine. He's angry all the way down in his bones."

Red X slid off the bed and stood in a crouch in front of Raven, balanced on the balls of his feet with his arms resting on his knees. His face was right in front of hers, and up close like this he looked even _more_ like Robin. The blue eyes met hers steadily. She looked back, refusing to flinch.

"Do you know what happened to my parents?" he asked, his voice barely over a whisper. "Do you, Raven? They're dead because some worthless criminal scumbag wanted to make a buck. People like that… they don't deserve to live. I wanted to end him. I _needed_ to, but Bruce wouldn't let me. Said _justice_, not _vengeance_."

"An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind," Raven replied coolly.

He made a derisive sound in his throat. "I wouldn't expect you to understand." Red X straightened so he was towering over her. His voice became harsh and loud, his angry eyes glared down at her like he could burn her into cinders. "Maybe when _you've_ seen your parents die right in front of you, you'll know that there's nothing _just_ about the man who caused it getting nothing more than a few years in prison and a slap on the wrist when he should be rotting in the dirt like the piece of garbage he is."

It was painful to watch him and listen to him, because underneath that rage and determination for revenge was a raw, bleeding _hurt_. He felt real sorrow. He missed his parents. He was trying to find a way to make sense of it all.

He wasn't so different from Robin.

"The reason you wanted that briefcase…" Raven was fitting the pieces together. "It wasn't to sell it. It contained personal items that only had any worth to Robin… and also to you. You wanted it for yourself."

She remembered that day vividly. It was the day Robin told them his secret, his past, his identity. Raven had already known, but that day meant more because it was the day he _told_ her.

A strange, amused smile twitched at Red X's mouth, and she knew she was right.

"But why did you bother helping us those times?" asked Raven. "Why did you wait until now?"

"I was working on my plan. I wanted to be prepared. I needed supplies, and resources, and inside information." He tugged at the front of his Red X suit. "This was just a means to get them. The Red X act was perfect to fool those idiot villains into thinking I was one of them, and to throw you off. I mean, you never suspected, did you?"

"No."

It was the truth. Red X had always been a person of suspect, because they didn't know who he was, but as for his motives… those they had written off as plain greed and personal entertainment. Not once, in their wildest theories, had they ever suspected _this._

Red X nodded in satisfaction. "Good. I knew it; I'm the better one. I can fool even _him_. Robin could have accomplished so much, if it weren't for those outdated morals holding him back."

He threw Robin a glance, his face twisted into one of condescension, his nose wrinkling in disapproval.

"I can hear him sometimes, you know," Red X said off-handedly. "Like a conscience. And I don't like it." He crossed his arms and walked in a restless pace around the bed, his eyes locked on Robin. "I can't use a gun. I tried, but something in me keeps hesitating and throwing off my aim, and that something is _him_." Stopping in his tracks, he gave a small, accusing kick to the leg of the bed. Even that slight jolt didn't wake Robin. Red X's voice dropped to a thoughtful murmur. "It was an imperfect spell. Robin wasn't completely purged and I'm not pure, either. I'm getting there, though. Things are changing. I'm changing. I'm getting stronger, and Robin… his time is almost up. He needs to go. But, first things first."

As he was turning to Raven, she saw the sharp glint of red reflected in the mirrored closet doors, and she knew what was coming next.

The X-shaped blade hovered in front of her throat. "I've always liked talking to you, Raven. You're a good listener. But, this has to be goodbye. You're the one who created me, and I have no doubt that on a better day you could destroy me, too. Today isn't that day."


	3. Fault

A/N: And that's it! Please review, I'd love to know what you think! :D

Warnings for some blood and not-very-graphic character death

(I need to write happy things after this)

* * *

Raven tried to arch her neck away from the sharp edge that was lightly pressing against her skin. Her throat went dry as she waited, and she didn't risk swallowing with that blade so close. She was unable to think of a way to escape. Her mind was blank, the thoughts blocked out by the fear.

A few tiny, careful breaths later, Raven ripped her gaze from the sharp, red blade and looked up at Red X, who had not moved further. He was staring into empty space somewhere above her head, with an annoyed scowl on his face.

His eyes flickered in doubt like he was fighting an internal battle. "Not _now_," he grumbled, then let out a long-suffering sigh.

The blade eased its pressure on Raven's throat, and then was lowered altogether.

"Fine," said Red X over his shoulder as he walked to the bed, leaving Raven bound to the chair. "Him first, so I can be rid of him once and for all, and then it'll be your turn." Contemplatively, he ran his thumb over the edge of the blade on his wrist, testing its sharpness. "And then I'll deal with the rest of the Titans. I don't know if I'll be able to leave them alive. They know too much, and, after what I do to the two of you, they'll never leave me alone and let me do my job. If they're not with me, they're against me." The sheer indifference in that stolen voice when he talked about killing the other Titans, like it would be nothing but a chore, made something bitter and dark boil inside Raven. She couldn't stop herself—she was getting angry. "And after that I'll have to go talk with Bruce. Maybe I'll be able to convince him to see things my way. But, probably not." He considered this for a moment, then concluded, "I can always try to _force_ him to."

She was seeing red. The fury was building. The rare, overwhelming emotion—always out of her control—surged through her, colder than ice, and it was power. Not much power, and she couldn't completely give in to it in case she lost her senses and hurt Robin, but it was enough.

Raven focused that flare of rage into a wave of energy that snapped the xenothium bindings holding her to the chair and was supposed to send Red X flying against the wall and knock him out. It passed over him harmlessly like a thin veil of black water. It only succeeded in ruffling his hair.

The magic he had absorbed over those weeks was shielding him. It repelled the attack that Raven had poured energy she didn't have into.

"Raven, you know that won't work," he said impatiently, watching her stumble and support herself against the wall, struggling against the need to collapse to her knees. "Just give up. You lost the second you stepped foot into this tower."

She wanted to snarl in frustration. Taking a deep breath through her nose to rein in the rage—had to stay in control, not waste any energy—she lifted the chair beside her with her powers and hurled it with as much force as she could muster at Red X. He dodged it easily and it smashed into splintered pieces when it hit the wall. Her aim was terrible. She was too dizzy and exhausted to see straight.

But Red X was only going to lay a hand on Robin over her dead body. She launched herself at him, arm swinging forward to strike, knowing she wouldn't stand a chance but knowing that she needed to try _something._

The little hand-to-hand combat she knew, Robin had taught her._ In case you ever need to defend yourself_, he'd said those times in the gym. _You can't rely solely on your powers._

She didn't stand a chance. In their spars, she had never even come close to defeating Robin. She only managed to throw one punch that Red X smoothly dodged. He grabbed her arm and twisted, expertly redirecting her own force against her, then everything was upside-down and the floor rushed up to meet her.

On her way down he jabbed her in the sternum with his elbow so swiftly that she didn't even realize that it happened until she was lying on the floor, unable to move, gasping hollow, shuddering breaths that burned in her lungs from having the wind knocked so completely out of her.

Lifting her head up as much as she could, she saw Robin's blue eyes were looking down at her, satisfied with the pain he'd—

No. _He wasn't Robin._

It wasn't Robin looking down at her with cool detachment.

"_Richard Grayson_," she said between gasps, in a hard, authoritative voice, like it was a spell. But it was useless—there was nothing she could do. Robin wasn't waking up and Red X was beyond reason.

Red X walked away, and Raven couldn't even move enough to do something as pathetic as grab his ankles and try to pull him back. Her arms and legs were numb and her chest felt like it was on fire.

She would raze the tower to the ground if it meant stopping Red X but no more anger came to her, only a feeling of utter emptiness.

Unable to watch, she closed her eyes as tightly as she could. Her own loud breathing didn't block out all of the noise. She still heard the slick _thud._

Before she had been begging silently for Robin to wake up. Now she hoped more than anything that he would stay asleep so he wouldn't feel the pain because there had to be so much of it.

She felt some of it, though. The heartbeat halting abruptly—_pierced through_—then that empathic link that she held with Robin snapped like a string and she didn't feel anything from him at all.

There were soft footsteps that came to a stop beside her, then she was being nudged over by a foot and hoisted up by a bloody, gloved hand that grabbed the front of her clothes, bunching the collar of her cloak.

A blade was at her throat again, but it was a different one than before—an X-shaped throwing knife.

"This is the only way, Raven," Red X explained. "After what I had to do to Robin, you'll never rest until you stop me. It's my only chance."

A few seconds passed. Red X's hands were shaking so badly that the weapon threatened to slip out of his grasp and fall to the floor.

He wanted to do the deed. Raven could tell. He gritted his teeth and _tried_, but it didn't happen.

The arm not holding her up fell to his side as he failed for the second time to finish the task. Raven could breathe a little easier without the razor-sharp blade by her throat.

"I— I don't understand." He sounded so disappointed in himself, like Robin when he thought he had failed because one of them got hurt on a mission, except Red X was disappointed because he _couldn't_ hurt Raven. Frustrated, desperate, Red X stepped forward and slammed Raven's back against the wall. "I don't understand! He's gone now. Why can't I—?"

He may not have understood, but Raven suddenly did.

"The reason Robin created Red X was to stop Slade before any of _us_ could get hurt. He did it to protect his friends. You thought you could hurt us, but you can't. It's part of who you are."

She grabbed his arm, trying to wrench herself free. If she could get away, contact the other Titans, maybe there was a chance…

Red X snorted at her struggles. "You're so drained you can't even stand on your own. You don't have enough magic left in you to take me on."

"Maybe not," she said through a wheeze. Then, realization dawning, she said more confidently, "You're full of it."

"Wow, insults?" His laugh was thin and dry, like he didn't use it often. "That one was a bit crude for your tastes, wasn't it?"

"You're full of _my magic_, X," Raven told him. "And now that you've severed your connection to Robin, I don't have to worry about hurting him when I do _this."_

She placed her hand on his chest, right over the X on his costume. He tried to jerk away, but the touch couldn't be broken. Her hand was stuck fast by that same force that led her here to the tower—her own magic, being held in someone else's body.

His grip on her loosened and she was dropped to the floor, but she didn't collapse. She was feeling stronger now. Her legs were steady, no longer trembling. Her eyes glowed white as she reclaimed the magic that she had unknowingly given him.

He had taken everything from Robin. And now it was time for him to give it back.

if Robin's heart was still beating, the backlash may have caused irreparable damage to him, damage even worse than death.

Not that death itself shouldn't have been irreparable, but Raven was a Titan and like Robin had once said during the darkest time of her life, the Titans had done the impossible before.

Clinging to that shred of hope—maybe she could still fix this—Raven ruthlessly ripped every last drop of magic out of Red X. His eyes were wide with pain and he gave a shocked cry as he staggered away, his skin fading to ash grey and his eyes glowing red.

The demon that was hiding behind Robin's guise all this time, revealed.

There was something else—not Robin's, not Raven's—something new, something belonging solely to this Red X. It swirled brilliantly in Raven's palm for a short moment after she pulled her hand away from him, then she felt it slipping between her fingers like liquid and dissolving away into nothing. Lost.

"You can't stop me," Red X said. "Face it, Robin's gone. No matter what you do, _I've won_. I—"

Raven cut him off by trapping him in an orb of dark energy that materialized around him. She was done hearing him talk. That didn't mean she was finished with him. The Red X standing before her was a fragment of Robin—just the spark of life she needed to bring him back.

The anger was back, and she let it feed her magic only slightly—she needed raw power, but she also needed finesse. This was delicate, and if she did it wrong… if she let the bit of Red X take over… she would ruin her only chance to save Robin.

She closed her eyes and chanted, concentrating hard to find Robin and pull him back (_there was still time, she could still do this_), and to force Red X back where he belonged, and to heal Robin's body.

A flash of bright light forced her to shut her eyes again, right after she opened them.

It would work. It had to. It—

Raven risked a look. Robin was waking up with a start and a gasping breath. Red X was nowhere to be seen.

"What…" Robin began, throwing off the blanket and trying to stand up. "What happened? Why am I bleeding?"

Raven rushed forward and placed a hand on his chest—trying not to flinch away at the wet feeling of blood—to make him sit back down on the bed. He shouldn't overexert himself so soon, and she needed to make sure the wound was gone.

Robin looked up at her face and frowned in concern and confusion.

"Raven, were you crying? Are you okay?"

It wasn't until later, after the other Titans had managed to disable the lockdown, and Raven explained, and everyone was a mixture of horrified beyond measure at what Red X had done and relieved that Raven had stopped him, and they were certain that Robin was okay and hopeful that things would work out from there on, and Raven had washed her hands half a dozen times to scrub away the red…

It wasn't until then that she had time to stop and consider what she had done.

* * *

The next morning, Robin was the only one to watch the security footage, even though Raven gently told him it was best he didn't. Afterwards he emerged into the hallway pale and wordless, went to the bathroom and threw up, then shut himself in his bedroom for the rest of the day.

He didn't leave until the next morning, when he snuck out quietly before dawn and sat on the edge of the roof to watch the sunrise, as was often his custom. Raven was sometimes his companion, but this morning she stayed in bed and Starfire joined him instead. They sat side-by-side. He dropped his head to rest on her shoulder, and she rubbed his back comfortingly. Most of the sky was covered in clouds, so it wasn't a particularly impressive sunrise, but they sat there in silence, watching the sky lighten for over an hour.

Robin joined them for breakfast. He sat at the counter, obediently eating everything they put in front of him (except for the tofu sausage, which he fed to Silkie when Beast Boy's back was turned) and laughing at their antics.

It was indescribably wonderful. He was acting like Robin again. Everything seemed perfect, on the surface.

Raven knew she should be ecstatic—or as ecstatic as she could be—that Robin was back to normal, but when Robin chuckled at Cyborg being tricked into drinking a glass of soy milk, all she could hear was the memory of his voice:

_"And then I'll deal with the rest of the Titans. I don't know if I'll be able to leave them alive."_

She did a good job of avoiding him for most of the day, but the tower could be a small place. They crossed paths in the hallway on the top floor—she wondered if he arranged it on purpose—and she could not ignore him after everything that happened.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Physically, I feel a lot better than I have in a long time," Robin said. Then he sighed and hung his head. "Otherwise, I feel completely awful. I can't believe it. Raven, I'm so sorry you had to go through that." His shoulders were hunched in shame.

"You weren't responsible for any of it. I was the one who lost control of my powers and brought him to life."

"But if I hadn't made the mistake of becoming Red X in the first place—"

"Can we just say that it's neither of our faults and be glad that it's over with?" Raven asked, not wanting to have this conversation.

"No." He gave her a small, wry smile and, unlike Red X's, it was genuine. "That's not who we are, Raven."

"I know," she admitted. "Listen, Robin. Red X… _that _Red X… He's not you. He was a one-time alter ego that split away and grew into his own person. Everything he did and said… at that point he wasn't just a part of you anymore. It was all _him_, not you."

"There's something you're not telling me," Robin said after a moment, reading her face like no one else could. "What's wrong?"

"I'm no better than him," Raven said quietly. "He tried to kill you, and because of that I killed him."

"But he wasn't a real person," Robin asserted. "He was a part of me. You just put things back the way they used to be."

"No. I wish it was that simple, but it's not. I already told you—that's how he started, but he became a separate person, slowly, over time, with his own feelings and goals. If he hadn't, he would have disappeared after what he did to you. I had to rip all of that development from him to force you two back together. I took away his life and gave it back to you. He was alive, now he's not."

She remembered the scared look on Red X's face and in his blue eyes before they turned red. She remembered—would never be allowed to forget—the sensation of that essence slipping through her fingers. She wasn't sure what to call it. _Soul?_ Maybe not innocent, but still there.

By the time she had realized what she was actually doing, what she was taking with her magic, it had been too late to stop.

But would she have reversed it, even if she could have?

"I don't regret what I did," Raven told Robin. "He tried to kill you. He _did_ kill you. He…"

_...deserved it_, an ugly, smug voice murmured in her head.

She saw Robin struggling, trying to deny the truth or explain her actions away without resorting to Red X's damning logic. The argument taking place in his mind showed clearly on his face, his expression flickering from shock to denial to uncertainty.

"Raven…" was all he said before she turned and walked away, pulling up the hood of her cloak.

She didn't need him to make her feel better by wrapping it up in excuses, or hiding it under thin reasoning, or painting over it in shades of grey. She knew exactly what she had done.

They all had their dark sides.


End file.
